Electrochemical cells and particularly the lithium batteries contain highly reactive components. Packaging these materials properly is critical, since corrosion can readily destroy the most efficient battery through by-products and leakage. For that reason, stainless steel has become one of the most preferred packing materials for lithium batteries.
However, one other requirement in these high energy batteries is that the cells be hermetically sealed to prevent outside contamination of the cells and prevent leakage which can result in loss of performance and/or damage to the environment. Accordingly, efforts have been made to hermetically seal the battery, using stainless steel as mentioned above and glass which has been found to be an impervious insulator suitable for sealing the battery and preventing shorting of the cell between the anode and cathode.
Because of the differences in coefficient of expansion of stainless steel and glass and the relatively high temperatures required to fabricate glass to metal seals, glass to metal seals with a stainless steel pin have heretofore not been successfully fabricated. Normally, such seals between glass and metal require elevated fabrication temperatures of at least 1800.degree. Fahrenheit and preferable 2000.degree. Fahrenheit.